Petition seeks to end traffic impasse

May 24, 2012|DON CRINKLAW Forum Publishing Group

Increased police presence, street closures, speed tables and, "if necessary, litigation" are all included in a recent petition sent to city hall by Randall Klett, president of the Middle River Terrace Neighborhood Association, regarding traffic and safety issues near Fort Lauderdale High School.

For about two years the Middle River Terrace neighborhood has been pushing for some sort of traffic calming device – a roundabout or road closure – on the southwestern edge of the school.

Klett sent the petition to District 2 Commissioner Charlotte Rodstrom.

The area getting all the attention is at the corner of Northwest Fourth Avenue and Northwest 16th Street. This is also the edge of Middle River Terrace, and that's the problem. Drivers trying to avoid denser traffic on Sunrise Boulevard and Northwest 13th Street turn east on 16th Street, using the little residential street as a thoroughfare and, according to some residents, at high speeds.

Klett said the association has tried to work with the high school and Broward County School Board "to develop a plan to resolve serious traffic threats to pedestrians in [the] neighborhood." These streets do not have sidewalks, he said, "and students must share the street with speeding automobiles."

That's not the only threat, said the Middle River Terrace Association's president emeritus, Tim Smith.

"On numerous occasions, [female students] have reported that older men have tried to pick them up," Smith said.

However, that's a police matter, as is speeding, said Gregory Boardman, project manager with the School Board. He said the answer is increased enforcement, not road closures.

Boardman said any closures at the intersection on 16th Street and Northeast Fifth Terrace "would have a tremendous negative impact on emergency services" that would "add significant response times in the event of an emergency."

"We consider all of our schools to be the heart of any community," he said. "As a philosophy, we do not want to cut any vehicular artery that feeds our facilities. A healthy heart needs good arteries."

Boardman added that shutting down 16th Street behind the school would make the traffic clot on Fourth Avenue even worse "and would be extremely detrimental to all the other surrounding communities."

"A lot of people aren't thinking about the traffic load," he said. "They just don't want to be rerouted."

Additionally, Sal Gatanio, president of the South Middle River Civic Association, said a closure would be "no burden, as long as they keep the traffic on Fourth Avenue."

Klett's petition to Rodstrom seeks to end the impasse by asking the city to create a mechanism to insure that the school works with its neighbors in planning for the future, "as well as resolving matters of mutual concern."